Covanta Plan Sent To Bristol Planning Board

BRISTOL — Despite some skepticism, the city council has advanced the Covanta recycling center proposal to another level of review.

The council this week sent the proposed contract to the city's planning commission, which is scheduled to discuss it on Dec. 26 at 5 p.m. at city hall. The commission can take no action, or it could offer a favorable or negative recommendation.

Either way, the council and finance board expect to vote on it Dec. 30 at city hall. Those meetings will start at 4 p.m.

A negative report from the planning commission would raise the odds against the Covanta deal passing because the council would need a two-thirds majority to approve it.

Some council and finance board members want more financial details before they vote, and Mayor Ken Cockayne has said he intends for them to get answers on Dec. 26.

Cockayne and Covanta have reached a tentative 10-year agreement for the company to operate a regional transfer station in the southern end of Bristol. Collection trucks from the city and 13 other communities would dump recyclable glass, plastic, paper and metal there. Covanta's larger trucks would then transport the materials to a sorting plant.

Covanta would pay about half the cost of a projected $1 million center in Bristol, with the city picking up the rest of the cost. The company also would pay $2.45 per ton of recyclables dumped at the station. It estimates that would run over $50,000 a year. Cockayne said Bristol also would save the cost of a refuse truck that runs every day to deliver recycling from the city to a sorting plant in Berlin.

Covanta, which has run the trash-burning plant since 1988, expects the recycling drop-off station to serve Berlin, Branford, Burlington, Hartland, New Britain, Plainville, Plymouth, Prospect, Southington, Seymour, Warren, Washington and Wolcott as well as Bristol.

Cockayne has said the city will build its own recycling drop-off station if the Covanta deal doesn't pass. Covanta wants approval before the new year starts.